This invention relates to an automotive accessory in general and more particularly to a new and novel freewheeling adapter for use on a car or truck to protect the drive train during towing of the vehicle.
Whenever automotive vehicles such as a car or truck having an automatic transmission break down on the road, the vehicle generally must be towed by a wrecker truck which will raise the drive wheels of the vehicle off of the ground in order to prevent damage to the drive train while towing the vehicle to the repair station. While such a method of towing is usually satisfactory in city areas where wrecker trucks are readily available, the towing of a disabled vehicle in rural areas can become a problem due to the unavailability of a wrecker truck. Should the vehicle be towed without raising the drive wheels from the ground, then damage can occur to the automatic transmission of the vehicle.
It is known to provide vehicles with floating wheel hub arrangements as typified by the U.S. Pat. No. 1,976,068, issued Oct. 9, 1934 to J. F. Higbee. Such arangements are built into the rear drive portion of a truck and are designed to eliminate uneven wear on tire treads by mounting the wheel assembly upon its supporting axle to permit limited swinging movement of the assembly in a vertical plane transverse to the plane of the assembly. Such mounting assemblies are used to assure that both single and dual assemblies of the truck will lie in a plane vertical to the sloping surface of the side of the road at all times.
It is also known to provide adapter assemblies to convert vehicle axles from semi-floating to full floating which is useful in increasing load capacity and dependability and simplifying servicing of the vehicle as taught in the U.S. Pat. No. 2,858,163, issued Oct. 28, 1958 to F. E. Nagel. It is also known to provide safety wheel attachments for motor vehicles in order to widen the wheel base of a motor vehicle in order to improve the stability of the vehicle making them easier to control on curves as typified in the U.S. Pat. No. 2,970,008, issued Jan. 31, 1961 to K. J. Leach.
A mounting arrangement for providing dual wheels on a single wheeled vehicle is taught in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,333,688, issued June 8, 1982 to E. M. Lemmon et al. Such dual wheel mounting arrangements are designed for correcting tire life and tire wear thereby allowing cross switching of the wheels easier than has been heretofore possible.
The prior art vehicle adapters, while undoubtedly satisfactory for the specific purpose designed, do not have the novel features which are available with the applicants freewheeling adapter hereinafter to be described.
Another important use of the applicant's novel invention is for use in towing front wheel drive vehicles behind recreation vehicles such as motor homes or the like. Present devices available today may comprise towing frames which will lift the front wheels off of the ground thereby disengaging the front wheel drive vehicle's automatic transmission. Such devices are also often used with moving vans that are utilized to tow a person's car as well as transport his possessions.